printer-friendly reviews are for non-commercial use only
printer-friendly reviews are for non-commercial use only
The Optio A10 ($350) is an ultra-compact 8 Megapixel camera with Pentax's new Shake Reduction system. While some image stabilization systems shift an element in the lens, the SR system actually moves the CCD sensor around for the same effect. A similar system was used in cameras developed by Konica Minolta.
Other features on the A10 include a 3X optical zoom lens, 2.5" LCD display, and a VGA movie mode that uses the DivX codec.
The ultra-compact camera arena is very competitive. Read our review to see how the A10 measures up to the competition.
What's in the Box?
The Optio A10 has an average bundle. Inside the box, you'll find:
As is the case with so many cameras this year, the Optio A10 has memory built right into the camera in lieu of a bundled memory card. Pentax gives you 24MB of onboard memory, which will hold just seven photos at the highest image quality setting. With that in mind I highly recommend buying a memory card right away. The A10 uses Secure Digital (SD) memory cards, and I'd suggest a 1GB card as a good starter size. I noticed some improvements in performance when using a high speed memory card, so it's probably worth picking up one.
The A10 uses the familiar D-LI8 lithium-ion battery. This compact battery holds 2.6 Wh of energy, which is about as low as you'll find. As you'd expect, that translates into pretty lousy battery life. Here's a look at that:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
As you can see, the A10 turns in lower than average battery life numbers. This is one camera where you'll definitely want to buy a spare battery.
Speaking of which, here's my usual speech about proprietary batteries like the one used by the Optio A10. First, they're expensive -- $35 a pop. Secondly, you can't use off-the-shelf batteries when your rechargeable dies like you could on a camera that uses AA batteries. Then again, you won't find super-thin cameras that use AA batteries.
The Optio A10 comes with a rather unique battery charging cradle. Just pop the camera into the dock and the battery will charge (inside the camera) in about 100 minutes. You can also take the battery out (or charge a spare) and charge it in the back portion of the dock (see photo). I don't believe that you can charge two batteries simultaneously, though.
If you want a more traditional external charger then you should check out the Pentax K-BC8, which is priced at around $40.
As is the case with all ultra-compact cameras, there's a built-in lens cover on the A10, so there's no clunky lens cap to worry about. As you can see, this is a pretty small camera.
There are just a few accessories available for the Optio A10. For those who want to control the camera remotely, there are two wireless remotes to choose from. Remote Control E lets you operate the zoom, while Remote Control F is just a shutter release. If you want to power your camera without draining your batteries then you'll want the K-AC8 AC adapter ($43). Other accessories include your choice of camera straps plus a camera case.
ACDSee 1.6 for Mac
Pentax includes ACD Systems' ACDSee software with their Optio cameras. Mac users get version 1.6, which is very basic. In fact, it's basically just an image viewer -- you can't do any editing. If you've got a Mac, then you're better off using iPhoto.
ACDSee 6 for Windows
Windows users get ACDSee 6, which is much better than the Mac version. Not only can you view photos, but you can create slideshows, layouts for printing, web galleries, and much more. Photos can be quickly rotated, cropped, resized, and e-mailed.
ACDSee 6 for Windows
ACDSee 6 also has editing capabilities, letting you adjust exposure, color, sharpness, and noise. You can apply effects to your photos and a reduction reduction tool is also available.
In conclusion, the Windows software is very competitive with the software bundled on other cameras, but the Mac version is severely lacking.
The manual that came with the Optio A10 is just average. While it's got plenty of detailed information, it's definitely not the most user friendly manual I've seen.
Look and Feel
The Optio A10 is a compact and stylish silver metal camera. It's well put together for the most part, though the plastic tripod mount and flimsy door over the memory card/battery compartment leave something to be desired. Controls are logically laid out, and the important buttons are easy to reach. Using the camera with one hand is not a problem.
Here's a look at how the A10 compares to other ultra-compacts in terms of size and weight:
|
The Optio A10 is one of the smallest and lightest cameras in its class. It will fit in any of your pockets, so it can go just about anywhere.
Let's take a tour of the Optio A10 now, shall we?
On the surface the Optio A10's 3X zoom lens looks fairly conventional. It has a maximum aperture range of F2.8 - F5.4, and a focal length of 7.9 - 23.7 mm (equivalent to 38 - 114 mm). The lens is not threaded, nor would I expect it to be.
Deep inside the camera is an 8 Megapixel CCD mounted on a special plate that can "shift" around. Gyroscopes inside the camera detect "camera shake", which is caused by tiny movements of your hand. The camera moves the CCD in a way that counteracts this shake, which results in a sharper image. What this means in the real world is that you can use slower shutter speeds than on an unstabilized camera. Want to see how well it works? Check out these examples:
WIthout Shake Reduction
With Shake Reduction
Both of the above samples were taken with a shutter speed of 1/10 sec. As you can see, the SR system turned a throwaway picture into something completely different. If you need another example of how well the system works then check out this sample movie, taken with and without Shake Reduction.
To the upper-right of the lens you'll find the AF-assist lamp (which is also used as the visual countdown for the self-timer) plus the microphone.
Moving to the left we find the A10's built-in flash. The flash strength is decent for an ultra-compact camera, with a working range of 0.06 - 5.0 m at wide-angle and 0.35 - 2.5 m at telephoto. You cannot attach an external flash to the Optio A10.
The last thing to see on the front of the camera is the receiver for the optional remote control, which is to the left of the flash.
The main thing to see on the back of the Optio A10 is its large 2.5" LCD display. Not only is the screen big, but so is the resolution of 232,000 pixels. As you'd expect, images on the screen are nice and sharp. Outdoor visibility isn't great, but low light visibility is even worse. Most cameras these days automatically brighten the screen in low light conditions, but not the A10 -- you can't see anything.
As you can see, there's no optical viewfinder on the Optio A10. Some people will think that this is a bad thing, and others won't care. On a camera with pretty lousy LCD visibility in extreme conditions it would be nice to have a viewfinder as a backup.
Now let's talk about all those buttons to the right of the LCD. I'll start with the zoom controller at the top. A found the controller to be very unresponsive. You press the button, wait, and then the lens moves. Other times the lens didn't respond at all. I haven't seen anything this slow in quite some time. Anyhow, it takes about 1.2 seconds to go from wide-angle to telephoto. There are seven steps available in the 3X zoom range.
Below that is a button for entering Playback mode, with the four-way controller below that. The four-way controller is used for menu navigation and also:
I have a lot of explaining to do before we continue with the tour.
First, I want to talk about the continuous option in the drive menu. In this mode the camera lets you take photos at a very sluggish 0.5 frames/second (and that's with a fast memory card, too) until the memory card fills up. To make matters worse the LCD is blacked out during the entire process, so you can't even see what you're trying to take a picture of!
The capture mode button acts as the virtual mode dial on the Optio A10. Most of the options listed above should be self-explanatory, but I do want to touch on a few of them. The program mode is just like the auto mode except that you get access to all the menu items. The candlelight mode will boost the ISO to 800, which you probably don't want, as the noise will be hideous. The frame composite option lets you put a "frame" around your subject and stores the whole thing in a 3 Megapixel image. You can also create your own frames and put them on an SD card, if you desire.
Manual focus
While I will touch on the A10's macro abilities later in the review, I do want to mention the pan focus and manual options. The pan focus option fixes the focus distance to 2.3 m to infinity, which reduces the "lag" before you take a photo. It's also good for situations when your subject is difficult to focus on. The manual focus mode lets you use the four-way controller to set the focus distance yourself. A guide showing the current focus distance is shown on the LCD, and the center of the frame is digitally enlarged so you can verify proper focus.
Back to the tour now. Below the four-way controller are two final buttons. The Menu button -- get this -- enters the menu system, while the green button is customizable. The default function for the green button is to turn the Shake Reduction system on and off in record mode, and to delete photos in playback mode. The green button can also be used to control almost any option in the camera's menu system.
On top of the camera you'll find the shutter release, power, and Shake Reduction preview buttons. This last button activates the SR system so you can compose your photo without any camera shake. You do have to keep the button held down, though, which is kind of annoying. I'd rather have an option that turns the system on when you halfway press the shutter release instead.
The only thing to see on this side of the camera is the speaker.
Though they're hard to see (darn mirrored surfaces), here you'll find the Optio's I/O ports. They include USB + A/V out (one port for both) plus DC-in (for the optional AC adapter) They are protected by plastic covers of average quality. The Optio A10 supports the USB 2.0 High Speed standard for fast photo transfers to your Mac or PC.
The lens is at the full telephoto position in this photo.
On the bottom of the camera you'll find a plastic tripod mount, the contacts for the battery charger, and the battery/memory card compartment. The last item is covered by a somewhat flimsy door. You cannot swap memory cards while the camera is on a tripod.
The included D-LI8 battery is shown at right.
Using the Pentax Optio A10
Record Mode
It takes a little over three seconds for the Optio A10 to extend its lens and "warm up" before you can start taking pictures. That's very slow for an ultra-compact.
A live histogram is shown in record mode
Autofocus speeds were just average. Typically it took the camera between 0.4 and 0.6 seconds to lock focus at the wide end of the lens, and closer to 1 second at the telephoto end. Low light focusing was good thanks to the A10's AF-assist lamp.
Shutter lag was barely noticeable at fast shutter speeds, but it became more obvious as the speeds dropped. Flash shooting also seemed a bit slow, since the flash always fires twice, even without redeye reduction turned on.
Shot-to-shot times were disappointing. You'll have to wait about 3.5 seconds before you can take another shot. Most of the competition has a delay of 1 - 1.5 seconds.
You can immediately delete a photo that you've taken by pressing the "green button".
Now let's take a look at the myriad of image size and quality options available on the Optio A10. Pentax uses a "star" system to represent image quality. The more stars, the higher the quality.
|
As you can see, there are plenty of options to choose from. The table also shows that there is no RAW or TIFF mode on the Optio A10.
Images are named IMGP####.JPG, where # = 0001 - 9999. The file numbering is maintained even if you replace and/or format memory cards.
Now, onto the menus!
While not terribly attractive, the Optio A10's simple-to-use menu system gets the job done. Remember that some of the options in the menu are not accessible in the auto and scene modes. With that in mind, here's the full record menu list:
The only one of those options that I want to mention is the custom white balance mode. This lets you use a white or gray card for perfect color even under unusual lighting. This is the second of the two manual controls on the camera.
There's also a setup menu on the camera, and it contains these options:
Well enough about menus, let's do photo tests now. I updated the camera firmware to version 1.01 before performing these tests.
The Optio A10 did a good job with our macro test subject. The colors are accurate, and the subject has a "smooth" look to it. The camera's custom white balance feature handled my studio lamps well.
There are two macro modes on the Optio A10. In normal macro mode you can get as close to your subject as 12 cm. The zoom range is limited to roughly 1X-2X. Super macro mode locks the lens at wide-angle and reduces the minimum focus distance to 6 cm.
The night shot was just okay. Since there's no way to manually set the shutter speed, you have to cross your fingers and hope that the camera picks a good one. My initial shots (using the night scene mode) were too dark, so I bumped the ISO up to 100 to brighten things a bit. That's why the shot is bit noisy and soft (and still too dark in my opinion). Purple fringing was not a problem.
Since I can't control the shutter speed I am unable to do the night ISO test. I do, however, have an ISO test that I took in the studio. Look below for that.
There's moderate barrel distortion at the wide end of the Optio's 3X zoom range. Barrel distortion makes straight edges look curved, as you can see in this example. While the chart shows some vignetting (dark corners), I didn't find this to be a problem in my real world photos. One issue that you will encounter on the Optio A10 and other ultra-compact cameras is some blurring in the corners of the frame.
Being a compact camera it's not surprising that the Optio A10 has a big redeye problem. However, Pentax has a redeye removal tool built into the camera (accessible in playback mode) that removes it fairly well:
Not perfect, but a whole lot better in my opinion!
Here's that ISO test that I promised. This one is taken in my studio, and is comparable between cameras. While the crops below give you a quick idea about the noise levels at each ISO setting, viewing the full size images is always a good idea. Enjoy:
 ISO 50 |
 ISO 100 |
 ISO 200 |
|
The Optio A10 impressed me with its high ISO abilities. The ISO 50 and 100 crops look about the same, with just a bit more noise at ISO 200. While it's not as good as the Fuji FinePix F30, the A10 is comparable to the Canon PowerShot SD700 IS and superior to the Nikon Coolpix P3 at ISO 400. While you probably won't be making large prints at ISO 400, smaller prints should be acceptable.
Overall the photo quality on the Optio A10 was very good. Photos were generally well-exposed, with pleasing colors and sharpness. Purple fringing was minimal, and noise was reasonable considering the resolution of the camera. My only real complaint is that fine details like grass, shrubs, and trees look really muddy, with this shot being an extreme example. Unless you're inspecting the photos at 100% on your computer screen (which is my job) or making large prints, this shouldn't be a huge issue.
As always, I recommend having a look at our photo gallery to see how the A10's photos look with your own eyes, printing them if you can. Once that's done you can decide if the A10's photo quality meets your standards.
Movie Mode
On paper the A10's movie mode sounds great. It offers unlimited recording at 640 x 480 (30 fps) with sound using the DivX codec. DivX is so efficient that you can fit over 40 minutes of video on a 1GB SD card -- compare that to the Canon SD700 which stops recording after about eight minutes! The downside here is that the videos seem choppy considering the frame rate, and that Mac compatibility isn't great.
There are two movie resolutions available (640 x 480 and 320 x 240), and three quality settings for each of those.
You cannot use the zoom lens during filming (it will be locked when you start filming). You can, however, use the digital zoom. Naturally, the Shake Reduction system can be used during filming.
An editing feature lets you split movies into two, copy portions of a movie into a new clip, and save a frame as a still image.
Here's the usual train station sample movie for you. If you're a Mac users you'll need to download the DivX codec, but even then the movie didn't play correctly for me (no sound).
Click
to play movie (3.8 MB, 640 x 480, 30 fps, AVI/DivX format)
Can't view it? Download QuickTime and DivX.
Playback Mode
The Optio A10 has a pretty snazzy playback mode. Basic features include slideshows, DPOF print marking, thumbnail view, voice captions, image protection, and playback zoom (aka zoom and scroll). This last feature lets you enlarge the image by up to eight times, and then move around in the enlarged area.
There are quite a few editing features available as well. You can rotate, resize, and crop photos at the push of a button. There's also the redeye reduction tool that I mentioned in the previous section. If you want even more toys then you'll like the various filters on the camera. They include color filters, digital effects, and brightness. You can also put frames around your photos, if you desire.
A copy function lets you move photos from the internal memory to an SD card and vice versa.
The Optio A10 moves through images at a good clip, showing a low res image instantly with the high res version following about half a second later.
How Does it Compare?
The Pentax Optio A10 is an ultra-compact camera that offers a lot of features for much less money than competitive cameras. You'll get an 8 Megapixel CCD, image stabilization system, sharp 2.5" LCD display, VGA movie mode, and plenty of point-and-shoot features for a little over $300. Most of the competition (save for the Panasonic FX01) costs $50 - $100 more. Unfortunately the Optio A10 lags in a number of areas -- most notably camera performance -- so you're better off trying another product.
The Optio A10 is an ultra-compact camera with an 8 Megapixel CCD and 3X optical zoom lens. The body is made mostly of metal, and it feels very solid for the most part. Weak spots include the usual flimsy door over the battery and memory card compartment and the plastic tripod mount. Speaking of which, you can't swap memory cards while the camera is on a tripod. The A10 has a CCD-shift type image stabilizer which reduces the effects of "camera shake", allowing you to take sharp photos at shutter speeds that aren't usable on unstabilized cameras. On the back of the camera you'll find a large and sharp 2.5" LCD display. Unfortunately these screen has poor visibility in bright outdoor light as well as dimly lit rooms, and there's no optical viewfinder to use as a backup.
The A10 is a point-and-shoot camera with a bunch of bells and whistles and two manual controls: white balance and focus. The camera has the usual set of scene modes, and there are a number of digital effects that you can apply to photos in playback mode. That's also where you'll find the A10's redeye reduction tool, which did a fairly good job of ridding photos of this annoyance. The camera can record VGA-sized movies for a long time using the efficient DivX codec, though the videos seemed choppy, and I couldn't hear sound on my Mac (even after downloading the codec). Speaking of Macs, while the bundled ACDSee software for Windows is great, the Mac version is very basic -- you're better off using iPhoto.
Camera performance is undoubtedly the A10's weak spot. The camera is slow to start up, there's noticeable shutter lag (especially with flash shots), and shot-to-shot speeds are below average. Focusing speeds were about average, and low light focusing was good thanks to the A10's AF-assist lamp. The camera's continuous shooting mode was especially poor. While it will keep shooting until you run out of memory, the 0.5 fps frame rate and blacked out LCD make the feature almost useless. Battery life was well below average.
Photo quality was generally very good. The camera took well-exposed photos with pleasing color and sharpness, minimal purple fringing, and low noise (considering the camera resolution). Noise levels don't get too bad through ISO 200, and at ISO 400 you still should be able to make a 4 x 6 inch print. My only real complaint is that the A10 suffers from a case of "muddy details" at times. The camera also has a redeye problem, though the in-camera redeye removal tool worked fairly well.
While the Optio A10 has a lot to offer (with good image quality and image stabilization), it's lacking in too many areas (performance and LCD visibility) to earn my recommendation. I think that most people would be better served by looking at other cameras, some of which I've listed below.
What I liked:
What I didn't care for:
Some other cameras in this class worth considering include the Canon PowerShot SD600 and SD700 IS, Casio Exilim EX-Z850, Fuji FinePix Z3, HP Photosmart R927, Kodak EasyShare V603, Nikon Coolpix S5, Olympus Stylus 810, Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX01, Pentax Optio T10, Samsung Digimax i6, and the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-N1 and DSC-T30. Of those, the Canon SD700, Panasonic FX01, and Sony T30 have image stabilization.
As always, I recommend a trip down to your local reseller to try out the PowerShot A10 IS and its competitors before you buy!
Photo Gallery
See how the photos turned out in our gallery!Want another opinion?
Read more reviews at Digital Photography Review, Steve's Digicams, and CNET.
Feedback & Discussion
If you have a question about this review, please send them to Jeff. Due to my limited resources, please do not e-mail me asking for a personal recommendation or technical support.
To discuss this review with other DCRP readers, please visit our forums.
Home | News | Digital Camera Reviews & Info | Forums | Buyers Guide | Digital Camera Prices | FAQ | Newsletter | About | Advertising | Feedback
All content © 1997
- 2008 Digital Camera Resource Page LLC (R)
Content and images from this site may not be reposted on your website
or online auction.
All trademarks are property of their respective owners.
